brooks



(No Model.)

No. 481,892. Patented Aug. 30, 1892.

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NrrE STATES ries.

EDWARD J. BROOKS, OF EAST ORANGE, NEW JERSEY, ASSIGNOR TO THE E. J. BROOKS do COMPANY, OF NEIV YORK, N. Y.

SEAL.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 481,892, dated August 30, 1892.

Application filed May 25, 1892. Serial No. 484,365. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, EDWARD J. BROOKS, a citizen of the United States, and a resident of East Orange, in the State of New Jersey, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Seals, of which the following is a specification.

This invention as a whole consists in an improved seal of that class in which the ends of a flexible shackle are united to fasten the seal by inclosing them or portions of them in a suitable seal-disk or the seal proper and compressing and solidifying such seal-disk or seal proper in a suitable press.

The primary object of the invention is to adapt the seal in a peculiar manner to a new use to which seals have recently been appliedviz., the marking of meat which has been officially inspected in such a way as to prevent the fraudulent use-of similar marking devices.

Another object of the invention is to pre vent the injury of the hands or persons of those who handle the meat by a spear-shaped extremity with which the shackle of the seal is provided to facilitate thrusting it through the meat.

A sheet of drawings accompanies this specification as part thereof.

Figures I and II of these drawings are respectively a face View and a cross-section of my spear-seal for meat, showing it open. Figs. III and IV are like views of the same ready for the press. Figs. V and VI are like views of the pressed seal. Fig. VII is a face view of a modified seal; and Fig. VIII is a magnified View of a piece of shackle-wire, illustrating the preferred method of making the shackle of said seal, Figs. I to VI.

Like reference letters and numbers indicate corresponding parts in the several figures.

Each of the improved seals is composed of a flexible shackle A, preferably of suitable wire, and a compressible seal-disk or seal proper B, which is preferably fast upon one end 10 of the shackle and constructed with a recess 11 in its face, which receives the other end 12 of the shackle, hereinafter termed its spear end, flatwise. erably of iron wire of a suitable gage, tinned, as represented at 13, Fig. VIII, and is provided with a sharp-pointed or spear-shaped The shackle A is pref-.

extremity 14: to facilitate thrusting it through the meat (represented at 0, Figs. III and V) and with an anchoring device 15 for this shackle end, which does not interfere with so thrusting it through themeat. Said anchoring device 15 is composed of a short re-entrant bend with straight portions of the wire in line with each other on both sides thereof. It is preferably produced, together with a suitable anchoring-bend 16 for the fast end of the shackle and with a suitable sharp-pointed extremity or spear 14, in the manner illustrated by Fig. VIII-that is to say, by rolling the wire with bends 15 16, separated by a short straight portion 14, suitable for the spear, and cutting the wire obliquely, as at 17, Fig. VIII,

to sharpen the spear end. The straight portion 18, Fig. VIII, between such a pair of bends and the next pair is sufficient for the required length of shackle and is determined by the circumference of the die-roll. A reciprocating bending-die may be used alternatively to convert the tinned wire into the peculiarly-constructed shackles. The sealdisks B of said spear-seals preferably have their said face-recesses 11 conformed to said anchoring-bends 15, so as to resist the Withdrawal of the shackle lengthwise, and formed with closed ends 19, so as toinclose and shield or mask the spear-shaped extremity lei of the fastened shackle, as in Fig. III. The sealdisks of all the seals maybe of any preferred circumferential shape, as illustrated by a dotted circle at B Fig. VII, and may be of lead or any other compressible material which is adapted to be pressed cold and to retain its shape and lettering, so as to insure the detection of any tampering with the pressed seal. They are also in common adapted to have both shackle ends and their laterally projecting anchoring devices located in one and the same plane parallel to the face of the disk by the location of said face-recess 11 and I the portion 20, which incloses the fast end 10 5 side by side, whereby in the pressed seal, Figs. V and VI, the seal-disk may be very thin, and thus protected against being successfully tampered with. Instead of the said anchoringbend 16, the fast end 10 may have a bent-up enlargement 21, as in Fig. VII, or any approved anchoring device, and other like modi IOO of wire having a spear end comprising a 15 sharp-pointed extremity and an anchoring device in the form of a short re-entrant bend, a compressible seal-disk fast on the other end of the shackle and having a recess in its face conformed to and which admits said spear end and closed at one end to mask said sharppointed extremity, substantially as hereinbefore specified.

EDWARD J. BROOKS.

Witnesses:

GEO. L. EWIN, GEO. M. WHITNEY. 

